The Unsung Hero
by Booksaboutnothing
Summary: During the Cloverfield Incident there was one unsung hero who helped 20 other people escape from Manhattan. This is that tale as told by those he assisted.
1. Prologue

Prologue: Alive

The fact that I'm still alive, that any of us lived through that horrible incident. I owe, we all owe it that one guy. When things were at their worst he showed up and he got us all out of their alive. He took us from a bunch of panic stricken civilians and he turned us into cohesive unit. There's no way that any of us can repay him for the help he gave us.

It was the incident the government ended up calling Cloverfield. We still don't know where it came from, or even what it was exactly. All we know was that it was big, it was tough, it was didn't care who it killed and it was intent on completely destroying all of Manhattan.

Everyone was praising the armed forces for their rapid response and evacuating over 3 million people, but for myself and nineteen others our praise went to one man. And this is the story of how he got us out of New York alive.


	2. Chapter 1: The Scruffy Stranger

Chapter 1: The Scruffy Stranger

The smoke was suffocating; I ran as best I could down the stairs, trying my best to stay standing. Something had sent the head from the statue of liberty flying past my building till it smashed down in the street over a dozen blocks away. Moments later there had been explosions as several buildings collapsed. Flaming debris had hit my building and I knew it was time to get out. But the elevators were offline. The main stairwell was blocked as was the stairwell at the east end. It had been almost an hour since the building had been damaged and I still couldn't find my way out.

I had finally found a set of stairs that weren't blocked off with debris, but when I got to the main floor I couldn't get out, something was blocking the door. Undaunted I continued downwards to the parking garage. I searched around for the exit in the dark. I felt like I could here rats scurrying about in the dark, but as I looked around I couldn't see any. Finally I could see a glimmer of light, it was the exit. I ran as fast as I could towards it. As I round it sounded as if something was following along behind me.

I looked behind but I still couldn't see anything. Suddenly I felt a hand grab me and I was being pulled along much faster.

"Move faster!" the voice belonging to the hand yelled at me.

I was completely stunned, but fortunately my body responded on its own and began moving faster. I glanced at the person who had grabbed me. He was tall, around 6'3 to 6'4 but he was rail thin. He was wearing a t-shirt that said Rated-R on it and black pants. He was covered it dust from what I guess was building's collapsing. He had a pair of half rim glasses on and he looked as if he hadn't shaved in a couple of weeks. He was carrying something at his hip, but I couldn't see what it was. He glanced back and then shoved me forward.

I stumbled forward for several steps before I tripped and rolled to a stop I looked back to see what he was doing. He had come to a stop at the top of the ramp out of the garage and was wielding what he had been holding. Now I could see clearly that it was some sort of sword. He was peering into the darkness of the garage as if he could see something. Suddenly something leaped out of the darkness at him. With lightening fast reflexes he raised the sword up in between himself and the creature. The creature didn't have chance to avoid it and it literally split in half as it met the sword splattering green-grey gore all over the place.

The stranger pulled off his glasses, glanced at them for a moment and then tossed them aside.

"Are you okay?" he asked me.

"Yeah I'm fine," I replied. "What was that thing?"

"I have no fucking idea," he replied. "They've been falling off that huge ass lizard thing that's been making a mess of the whole fucking city."

"Lizard thing?" I asked.

"Yeah, it's like Godzilla come to life," he replied. "Now come on we've got to get out of here."

He grabbed by the arm and began dragging me behind him.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"I really don't know," he admitted. "This thing has made a mess of the city and I don't know it well enough to find my way around."

"You're not from New York?" I asked.

He gave me a sidelong glance, "No, I'm just visiting."

Suddenly he stopped and glanced around.

"Get down!" He yelled as he dragged me along and we both fell to the ground together.

A huge foot slammed down right where we had been and a massive creature passed over us. I couldn't take it anymore a blood curdling scream came from out of my mouth. But just mere seconds later it stopped as the stranger clamped his hand over my mouth.

"Shhh," he hissed at me.

Suddenly there was the sound of gunfire. I turned towards the noise and saw dozens of soldiers running towards the creature weapons firing. But it was so big that their rifles were having no effect. Suddenly there was a loud boom as a tank appeared and opened fire. I began to feel hope but that was quickly squashed as the creature continued on it way wantonly destroying everything in its path.

"What are you still doing here?" Someone yelled.

I saw a soldier running over to us setting down his automatic rifle to check on us.

"We're fine," the stranger said. "We were on our way out but we got a little lost."

The soldier turned to say something but the stranger shoved him aside and I caught a flash of steel before all three of us were covered in green-grey gore as the stranger sliced another creature in half.

Suddenly the soldier started screaming. I turned to see that another one of those creature had latched onto his back and was biting him. The stranger swung his sword and that creature was dead, but the soldier was in rough shape.

"Leave him," the Stranger said grabbing the soldiers rifle and sheathing his sword.

"But he's still alive!" I protested. "We can just abandon him."

"Those wounds are serious," the stranger said. "And there's no way we can get him to a doctor in time."

"But…" I tried to protest as I examined the soldier's injuries.

The stranger grabbed me and pulled me away from him. He then knelt down and pulled out the soldier's sidearm.

"I'm sorry," the stranger said as he leveled the gun at the soldier's head.

The soldier stared up at him as if in anger but then he gave a grim nod. The stranger pulled the trigger releasing a single bullet into the soldier's head.

"Holy shit you killed him!" I yelled.

"He was a soldier and he knew that I was right," the stranger said. "We can't afford to care for every wounded person we come across if we're going to get out of here. I don't know about you by my main goal is to survive I don't want to die here like this, I refuse to be just another statistic. Now what about you?"

Despite everything I believed in, what he said made sense. Morally it wasn't right, but the logic behind it was understandable.

"So?" he asked still looking for an answer.

I reached out and grabbed the pistol from him, "I don't want to die." I said.

"Good," he said with a smile. "My name's Paul."

"Victoria," I replied.

He glanced at the soldiers and armored vehicles that were moving past us.

"Come on," he said grabbing me by the arm and helping me up. "If we go the opposite way that they're headed we're probably safe, we just have to watch out for those smaller things."

He'd already done so much to help, little did I know that he'd do several more heroic things before we finally got out of Manhattan.


	3. Chapter 2: Danger Zone

Chapter 2: Danger Zone

It was horrible, I have no idea what that thing was. My friends and I had taken shelter in a convenience store and we decided to try and wait it out. But then those, things, started to fall off of that big one. They were sort of crab like and they went straight for us. Davey and Mikey got mauled to death by those things so Kirk, James and I took off. They started chasing after us and boy were they fast. Kirk started to lose his breath and fall a bit behind and two of those things leapt onto him. James and I were too panic stricken to even stop to help as our friend fell we both ran as fast as we could, but they kept after us.

"Shit we're gonna die man!" James yelled.

"Just keep running!" I yelled back as we turned into an alley way.

I froze in place as I saw the barrel of an M-16 pointed at my chest. I followed the length of the barrel to the person wielding it. He was a skinny guy, but tall, taller than me and I was six foot. He was covered in dust, but so was I. He had a scruffy beard as if he hadn't shaved in over a week.

Without a word he shoved me aside and unloaded a single shot from the gun. One of the crab things was sent flying back as it was hit with a shot from close range. He quickly adjusted his aim and fired again, and then again and then again. Before I knew it there were eight dead crab things.

"Dude that was awesome," James commented. "Where'd you learn to…"

He was cut off as the stranger flipped a switch on the gun and unloaded with autofire as nearly a dozen of the crab things came skittering around the corner. Suddenly his gun started to click as it was out of ammo, but three of the creatures started to charge at us.

The stranger reached to his hip and unsheathed a sword. It flashed and before I knew what had happened one of the creature lay on the ground cut in half spewing green-grey guts all over the place.

"Victoria! Use the pistol!" The stranger yelled

Finally I noticed the girl that was in the alley with us. She was tall with curly red hair. Her clothes were covered in dirt and ash and there were singes all over as if she'd been in a burning building at some point. I noticed that she had a Colt .45 automatic pistol clutched in both hand against her chest but she wasn't moving. One of the creatures leapt right towards her but she just stood their unmoving.

Suddenly a flash of metal whipped through the air and the creature found itself impaled with the stranger's sword. I glanced back the stranger who was now defenseless as the last creature came baring down at him. I tried to pry the pistol from Victoria's hands to help him but she had a near death grip on it.

Fortunately the stranger wasn't as defenseless as I thought. He picked up his rifle and smashed the creature out of the air with the rifle butt. It bounced against the wall but soon righted itself. I finally pried the pistol away from Victoria and I unloaded several shots in the creature.

The stranger looked at me and gave me a nod.

"Yo dude that was whack!" James exclaimed.

"Dude we owe you," I said.

"How we do you know the tunnels?" the stranger asked.

"The tunnels?" James asked.

"Why do you want to know about the tunnels?" I asked.

"You've seen what it's like up here," the stranger said. "It's chaos, that thing is knocking over buildings left and right, it's probably a lot safer to be underground."

James and I stared at each other and shrugged. Both of had ridden the subway countless times, and we knew where most of the stations were, but neither of us had walked in the tunnels and there's no way the trains were running, not with power to the city constantly going on and off.

"You alright Victoria?" the stranger asked checking on the girl.

"Yo what's up with your girl dawg?" James asked.

The stranger glared at him with a look of anger on his face.

"She's not my girl," the stranger replied. "I saved her just like I saved you, but a soldier ended up dying."

Suddenly Victoria fell forward grabbing onto the stranger and began sobbing uncontrollably. The stranger grabbed her under the arms and shook her.

"Pull yourself together!" he yelled at her. "We can get out of this."

She went limp in his arms forcing the both of them to kneel on the ground.

"We can get out of this," the stranger said a lot more calmly. "But I need you to be brave. I need you to be strong okay. We're going down into the tunnels and we're going to find our way out of here."

Victoria wiped her faces clearing away some of the soot leaving soot streaks on her face.

"Are you going to be okay?" I asked her as James and I helped them to her feet.

She nodded but still didn't say a word.

The stranger went and pulled his sword out of the creature it was impaled in and kicked the thing a couple times to ensure it was dead. He then handed the assault rifle to James.

"It's got no ammo but we might be able to scavenge some clips if we come across some dead soldiers," the stranger said.

He then turned to me. "You were a pretty good shot there, you can keep the pistol. I want you to watch Victoria."

I nodded admiring the stranger take charge attitude.

"So what's the plan boss?" James asked.

"Where's the nearest subway station?" the stranger inquired.

"It's about eight blocks away from here," I replied. "But it doesn't go off the island."

"But it at least will meet up with another station where we can transfer to train that does right?" the stranger asked.

"Well, yeah," I replied.

"Then that's good enough. Which way is it?"

I pointed in the direction of the subway station.

"I'll lead," the stranger said.

"Yo dude you never told us your name," James said.

"I'm Paul," the stranger replied without looking back.

As I watched him lead us out of the alley way I had no idea just what kind of heroics we'd see before the night ended or the amazing feats we'd see from the most unlikely of heroes.


End file.
